Bank error in your favour. Collect $2. (Or something like that.)
The City of North Vancouver is opening up the community chest after a clerical error in the production of its 2023 tax notices resulted in property owners being overcharged.
The error occurred when staff were entering the rate collected on behalf of the British Columbia Assessment Authority into the tax system. By entering a wrong digit, property owners across all of the tax classes found their tax bills about .05-per-cent higher than they should have been – for a total of $75,784 overcollected by the city.
The impact of the overbilling hit different types of tax classes differently. For major industrial properties, the bills were $492.02 higher, on average, than what was owed. For residential properties assessed at the average for the City of North Vancouver, homeowners are out $1.89.
Larry Sawrenko, chief financial officer for the municipality, apologized on behalf of the city for the mishap, noting that there is no record of similar errors going back at least 30 years.
“It is a very small amount. And human errors do happen. We’ve made some changes in our process in this area improving our segregation of duties. And we do hope that people will accept our heartfelt apology,” he said.
To make taxpayers whole, the city will be automatically crediting the overcharges onto 2024’s tax bills before they go out, but Sawrenko said the finance department can make arrangements for people and property owners to receive a refund immediately, if requested.
The City of North Vancouver adopted its 2023 budget in the spring, bringing with it a 5.24-per-cent, on average, tax increase.
